1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention generally relate to the field of charged particle or atomic beam (hereinafter ‘particle’) accelerators and, more particularly, are directed to a particle accelerator having a particle pathway controlled only by a lateral electric field (and an optional magnetic field); integrated circuit (e.g. CMOS, or bi-CMOS integrated circuit) wafer and die-scale, lateral electric field-guided particle accelerators; and associated methods and applications.
2. Discussion of Related Technology
Conventional fusion reactors using magnetic and inertial confinement are necessarily of large size, typically that of a large building or hundreds of meters long.
‘Table-top’ accelerators using laser-produced plasmas to generate high electric field gradients (wakefields) to accelerate the ions within have been reported. However, these require the use of high intensity lasers having an input power exceeding 2×1018 W/cm2. Such high energy input would make such an energy-generating device improbable. Thus device bulkiness and cost for fusion reactors represent some of the challenges in making these devices practical.
A reported, relatively low-cost fusion device known as the Magnetized Target Fusion Project involves plasma containment using superconducting magnets. These magnets, however, are energy-expensive to maintain at their low operating temperatures.
In 2005, a group at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute reported the use of pyroelectric crystals to ionize gas, accelerating the ions up to 200 keV and inducing fusion in Deuterium-Deuterium reactions. However their device required the crystals to be heated to a high enough temperature to boil off electrons on their surfaces, which is not energy-efficient.
The inventors have recognized a need for, and the many advantages and benefits obtainable from, a charged particle accelerator having reduced volume, high efficiency, requiring less input energy than conventional apparatus, not requiring supercooling or heating, and not requiring a magnetic field (and the associated magnets) for particle confinement. Such a device manufactured using conventional integrated circuit and lithography-based micro- and nano-fabrication processes and thus being referred to herein as ‘chip-scale,’ may make possible a small, portable fusion battery as well as provide useful applications in medical therapy, explosive detection, radioactive materials detection, and others.
These and other advantages and benefits may be achieved by the embodied invention, which will be described in detail below and with reference to the drawings.